WEEKEND EDITION
THE
WEEK IN
PHOTOS
STORYWALK COMBINES
EXERCISE, LITERACY IN UMATILLA
REGION, A3
HERMISTON RACEWAY RETURNS
THE BACK PAGE, A10
SPORTS, B1
E O
AST
145th Year, No. 78
BMCC
makes
changes
amid
layoff s
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — When a new
president takes over Blue Mountain
Community College later this year,
they will inherit a
very diff erent insti-
tution than the one
that belonged to
their predecessor.
At a Wednesday,
April 16, workshop,
interim BMCC
Green
President Connie
Green updated a
Zoom audience that neared 50 people
about the 2021-22 budget. The new
fi scal year would not only bring more
layoff s, but a complete overhaul of the
college’s administrative structure.
In an interview, Green said she
identifi ed issues with the college’s
See BMCC, Page A9
Natural
gas energy
project
abandoned
Perennial Power
Holdings ceases
construction of plant
By JADE MCDOWELL AND
BRYCE DOLE
East Oregonian
HERMISTON — Perennial
Power Holdings has abandoned plans
to build a natural gas power plant
outside of Hermiston amid litigation
brought by environmental groups.
Columbia Riverkeeper and
Friends of the Columbia Gorge
announced on Tuesday, April
15, that counsel for the Perennial
Wind Chaser Station, a proposed
415-megawatt natural gas power
plant, sent an email to the Mult-
REGONIAN
APRIL 17-18, 2021
$1.50
WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
EO SPOTLIGHT
Curated with care
Oregon nonprofi t
provides CTUIR
with healthy,
sustainable food
during pandemic
to a community with high rates
of lactose intolerant individuals;
packages of red meats and pork
that may confl ict with religious
ideologies; a lack of nutritious
produce options.
“Sometimes food goes into the
pipeline that can’t be controlled
on down,” Edwards said. “At
times, there hasn’t been great
coordination to fi gure out, ‘Well,
what food needs to show up here
in this or that community?’ It was
just, ‘Hey, here’s what we’ve got,’
which has often been the way we
deal with commodity, excess
foods.”
The Wave is working to retool
the program in order to better
serve community needs. Instead
of implementing a top-down
system, The Wave works with
communities, customizing
boxes to better match necessity
and preference with sustain-
ably sourced items. In doing so,
the coalition has partnered with
BIPOC communities and busi-
nesses to create more resilient and
equitable food chains.
By SHANE HOFFMANN
For the East Oregonian
M
ISSION — On
a frigid Febru-
ary morning,
the Confed-
erated Tribes
of the Umatilla Indian Reserva-
tion held its twice-monthly food
distribution. With sheets of snow
blanketing the ground from a
recent snowstorm, members of
the reservation worked hand-in-
hand with distribution drivers
from The Wave Foundation, a
Portland nonprofi t sustainabil-
ity coalition that helps provide
communities like the reservation
with healthy and sustainable food
options during the pandemic.
Motown and rock ‘n’ roll
oldies emanated from a StreetHo-
pper Bluetooth speaker with an
8-inch woofer. Wave distribution
workers, community members
and high schoolers from the reser-
vation clad in jackets, gloves,
hats and scarves danced through
various jobs, trying to stay warm
amid brisk winds.
Kathleen Elliott, the work-
force development/BOLSTER
Program coordinator for the
Tribes, said she danced partly out
of necessity.
“It was cold, I needed to stay
warm,” she said.
But her expressive movements
weren’t simply the outcome of
chilly weather, but rather a joyful
experience, one which brings the
community together.
“The Wave has been a
godsend to us,” she said.
Worrisome trends
According to a report from
Oregon State University, in 2020
an estimated 1 million Orego-
nians, nearly 25%, experienced
food insecurity — defi ned as an
individual who “had a disruption
in their ability to feed themselves
or their family.” The percentage
has greatly increased since the
start of the COVID-19 pandemic,
up from just 10% in 2019.
The Wave Foundation/Contributed Photo
The contents of a The Wave Foundation Food Box handed out on March
18, 2021, in Mission, include SBABC Enterprises ground buff alo (pur-
chased from a Shoshone Bannock Tribal member), Red Lake Nation
Foods Syrup (a Native-owned company), Cuties clementines, mush-
rooms, Romaine lettuce, Brussels sprouts and caulifl ower.
While the U.S. Department of
Agriculture conducts its annual
food security surveys in Decem-
ber of each year, the data aren’t
presented to the public until nine
months after, once the numbers
have been analyzed. Without the
USDA’s data, Mark Edwards —
an OSU professor who has stud-
ied food insecurity for more than
20 years and published the report
— branched out to other avenues
in order to portray the fallout
from COVID-19 in a more timely
way.
Edwards turned his atten-
tion to tracking the food inse-
curity rate of people applying
for unemployment. He found
that a large percentage of those
applying stemmed from jobs
predominantly held by minori-
ties. Edwards says historically the
number of food insecure Black,
Hipanic/Latino, and Indigenous
individuals tended to be twice
that of white individuals. His
study was no diff erent. The report
fi nds BIPOC households have
been disproportionately aff ected,
leading to a food insecurity rate
that is two to three times higher
than for white Oregonians.
“One of the bigger surprises
for me has been in some ways the
shift in our thinking that had to
have happened,” Edwards said.
“It’s not just emergency food.
There are a lot of people who
are suddenly in an emergency
because of COVID-19, but before
that there were a lot of people that
were chronically without food.”
Founded in spring 2020 in
response to the growing issue
of food insecurity during the
pandemic, the USDA’s Farmers
to Families Food Box Program
partners with local businesses,
primarily farms, buying their
food before distributing it back
to the community through orga-
nizations, such as food banks and
other charities.
The program has distributed
more than 100 million boxes since
the start of the pandemic, but with
its widespread nature, the boxes
sometimes contain items that
either clash with a community’s
cultural needs or dietary prefer-
ences. A glut of dairy items sent
From the ground up
In January 2020, The Wave’s
co-founder, Justin Zeulner, and
a small group of associates and
close friends decided to stake
their claim in the world of sustain-
ability. Zeulner, who had worked
in the sustainability indus-
try for years with several busi-
nesses, including the Portland
Trail Blazers, began networking
and constructing his team. The
Wave’s team featured individuals
from a variety of backgrounds,
including commercial fi shermen,
climate advocates and chefs.
Zeulner and his team worked
to reel in stakeholding businesses
and federal grants, all the while
receiving donations from private
philanthropies to get the coalition
up and running. Zeulner says The
Wave’s blueprint and plan was
vast — tackle the issue of sustain-
ability with a furthered focus on
public health and social justice.
“It became evident, extremely
fast, that remote communities,
specifi cally tribal nation commu-
nities, are always underserved,”
Zeulner said. “The pandemic
shone the spotlight on big gaps
that we have in this country, that
being one of them.”
The Wave’s fi rst big project
centered around implementing
See Curated, Page A9
See Energy, Page A9
Volunteers hand out USDA food boxes, The
Wave Foundation food boxes and bottled
water, as well as other items donated to or
purchased by the CTUIR during a distribution
event in Mission on Dec. 30, 2020.
The Wave Foundation/Contributed Photo
COVID-19 NUMBERS
TOTALS FOR WEEK ENDING 4/15/21
IN UMATILLA COUNTY
RISK LEVEL
MODERATE
NEW
CASES
OVER 2 WEEKS
75
TOTAL
CASE GOAL
40
OR LESS
OVER 2
WEEKS
POSITIVE
TEST RATE
2.8
%
POSITIVE
1% TEST GOAL
5 %